wrote in message
oups.com...
The man were I bought several of my roses this year takes a rose garden
road trip most summers. He said he had a chance to see the Buck
gardens in Iowa(?) and it was hotter than Hades and they looked great.
My two have done very well with several weeks in a row with temps in
the nineties. And the nasty Central VA humidity.

Beth

I first read about the Buck roses in _Peter
Schneider On Roses_, 1995. To quote one
paragraph from his section on Buck roses:
"Buck's first mission at Iowa State University,
where he was a professor of horticulture,
was to study and improve rose understocks,
the 'wild' roses onto which garden roses are
bud-grafted. Later, he set out to breed shrub
roses that would be healthy in summer and hardy
enough to survive a winter on the Iowa prairie."

Somehow when I first read that I ignored the
part about "healthy in summer". I guess
he succeeded! Your summers can be worse
than mine. (I'm originally from Maryland.)
We both got lucky with Buck roses. They can
be hard to find, but worth the search.

Gail